


Uncured

by YvonneSilver



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bisexuality, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 02:12:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3919003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YvonneSilver/pseuds/YvonneSilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The super serum had cured many ills, but some things aren't meant to be fixed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uncured

Steve found that many things had changed since the experiment. Some things took getting used to. His height, for example took quite a while to adapt to. For the longest time after the change, he bumped his head against car roofs when getting in, or against lamps that never used to hang at head-height. Familiar places all looked slightly off to him from his new vantage point.

Another thing that kept surprising him was how people reacted to him after the change. Even when he wasn’t Captain America, people would make way for him on the street. Having grown up as a skinny kid in a busy city, he was used to being shoved aside, squeezing between crowds, stepping off the side-walk to let groups of people pass. Now they were stepping aside for him. Which was a good thing too, since in the beginning he wasn’t always aware of his new physique, and would regularly bump into people on accident.

But those things came later. The first thing he had noticed, after the pain had subsided enough to let him form coherent thoughts once more, was the air. Having been perpetually out of breath for as long as he could remember, the feeling of finally, finally catching his breath was overwhelming. Years later, he still appreciated the freshness of wintery air, now that he could breathe it without risking an asthma attack.

Another thing the serum had fixed was his color-blindness. It had been almost too much to take in at once - the world was so  _vibrant_. Steve delighted in discovering new colors and nuances, though he could never really find the right words to describe his amazement to others. The first autumn he experienced was glorious. For sure, his smile could’ve lit up New York for the winter. For the first time he could see what other people meant by the turning of the leaves, and it was more colorful than he could’ve imagined it to be.

There was no denying that the experiment had cured a lot of things, some of which Steve didn't even register until later. It was months before he realized that he hadn’t been sick once since the super-serum treatment. Not so much as a sniffle, a headache, or a cold. No more unexplained hurts in his joints, no more chest pains, no more fingers turning blue and numb at the first hint of cold, and the partial deafness in his right ear was gone too. In fact, Steve had been pretty sure it had fixed everything he could think of until that one evening a couple of weeks later.

 

It had been after one of his ‘Captain America’ shows that Brandt had him doing to promote war bonds. Steve’d managed to give his entourage the slip so that he could go for a walk before the show got on the road again.

He ambled aimlessly through the streets, when a trio of drunk sailors tumbled out of a bar, laughing and shouting half-hearted insults at the people still inside. The most sober of the bunch grabbed his two friends with a good-natured 'come on, let’s get home guys’ and began to lead them to wherever they were staying. The man was almost a boy still, but he filled the uniform well. Even in his inebriated state, he had an air of magnificence about him. The crooked grin on his face as he led his friends home said he knew it too.

As they passed him, Steve couldn’t help but turn around to watch him. His gaze slid down to the man's lower back, appreciated the sway of his hips as he strode down the street. Steve wasn’t even conscious of how his eyes had wandered until he caught himself thinking how much better he would look without the uniform and with that short hair all ruffled up and… Steve stopped himself when he felt his arousal.

That shouldn’t have been possible, he thought, shocked. He'd spent a life-time suppressing those kind of thoughts, convinced they were unnatural, but this time he'd been caught off-guard. He’d thought that, since the serum had fixed everything else, it would have fixed this too. 

The sailors had stumbled out of sight, and Steve began to walk back where he’d come from, deep in thought. He'd always thought his attraction to men was another one of his defects, a flaw to be listed with his other heart conditions. But while the serum had fixed the latter, apparently it hadn’t altered his feelings. He hadn’t realized it during the tour - being surrounded by beautiful women pretty much 24/7 - but he couldn’t deny it now: he was still attracted to men too. Those instincts were unchanged.

Dr Erskine had said that the serum amplifies everything that is inside, so good becomes great; bad becomes worse. But this felt neither great nor worse. It just was. What if, Steve pondered as he walked the empty city’s streets, what if that wasn’t meant to be fixed? What if sometimes men liked men? What if sometimes, someone liked both?  The longer he thought about it, the surer Steve was. Love was not something that needed to be cured. No matter who he fell for.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [ this tumblr post ](http://ayantiel.tumblr.com/post/105981604047).  
> Comments welcomed.


End file.
